Gindele v. Corrigan

Citations

• 129 Ill. 582
• 22 N.E. 516

Syllabus

<p>1. Admiralty—attachment or vessels — State and Federal jurisdiction—essentials to jurisdiction—in rem or in personam. Where the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States attaches, it does so to the exclusion of the jurisdiction of the State courts, and a State can not confer jurisdiction upon its courts in such cases.</p> <p>2. It is essential to a suit in rem in admiralty, against a vessel, that an actual seizure be made of it, and it be subjected primarily to the satisfaction of the judgment. Without such seizure the court acquires no jurisdiction of the vessel.</p> <p>3. The State may, by statute, authorize the attachment of the property of a debtor or tort feasor, as a security for the satisfaction of the judgment to be recovered, and in such case the proceeding is in personam, and not in rem. The object of .the attachment, in such case, is to secure a lien upon the property seized for the payment of the judgment, and not for the condemnation of the property itself.</p> <p>4. Where the owner of a vessel procures its release from the attachment hy giving his personal bond, with sureties, the suit will thereafter be a proceeding in personam. The plaintiff may then amend the record so as to make the bondsmen parties defendant. The statute authorizing such proceedings in the State courts is not in conflict with the constitution or laws of the United States.</p>